A qualified specialist notetaker sits alongside you in lectures, seminars, labs and placements and produces a complete, accurate written record of everything that matters — so you can concentrate on understanding rather than capturing.
Specialist notetaking is not the same as someone lending you their notes. Your notetaker is trained to work with a specific disability need and produces a structured record of the session: the argument being made, the terminology used, what appeared on slides and boards, what was said in discussion, and what the tutor flagged as assessed content.
For deaf and hard of hearing students (SN-D), the notetaker captures spoken content that is inaccessible in real time, including contributions from other students, so nothing is lost while you are watching an interpreter, a lipspeaker or a captioning stream.
For vision impaired students (SN-VI), the notetaker describes visual material — diagrams, graphs, whiteboard working, demonstrations — and delivers notes in your preferred accessible format, whether that is large print, a screen-reader-friendly document or an electronic file that works with your assistive software.
Every set of notes we produce is written to a consistent structure: session context, key concepts, definitions, the tutor's own emphasis, and follow-up actions. That structure means the notes are still usable in revision week, not just the evening after the lecture.
We also use AI tooling to support — never replace — the human notetaker. Summaries, glossaries of subject terminology and plain-English definitions are generated from the notes your notetaker wrote, then checked before release. The human record stays authoritative; the tooling makes it faster to navigate.
Notes are delivered within an agreed turnaround so they arrive while the session is still fresh, and they are stored in your student area so you never have to chase an email attachment.
Specialist notetaking is typically recommended in a DSA Needs Assessment for students who are deaf or hard of hearing, who have a vision impairment, or who cannot reliably listen and write at the same time because of their disability.
It is available at every level of higher education — foundation year, undergraduate, postgraduate taught and research — and works for in-person teaching, online teaching and hybrid delivery.
Support is available face-to-face or remotely by video call, and you can switch between the two at any point in your studies. We cover Greater London, the North West, North East, South East, South West, West Midlands and Yorkshire & Humberside.
All our notetakers hold the mandatory qualifications required by the Department for Education for the role code they deliver, and every practitioner is DBS checked and works to our confidentiality and data protection standards.
Yes. Specialist notetaking is a Non-Medical Help role funded through the Disabled Students' Allowance once it has been recommended in your Needs Assessment report. Pathways International invoices Student Finance directly, so there is nothing for you to pay.
Notes are normally with you within 24 hours of the session, and sooner where a deadline or an assessment depends on them.
Yes. Remote notetaking works over Teams, Zoom or your university's own platform, and the notes are delivered in exactly the same way.
Specialist notetaking sits in DfE Band 3. Our current rate is published in full on our rates page.